


She Who Rides Lightning

by Heronfem



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 12:17:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heronfem/pseuds/Heronfem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something in his eyes is bright when he breathes, “No- you’re the one who rides out the storm, and harnesses the lightning to keep it from hitting <em>them</em>.”</p><p>Or, the story of how the Impala and Death's Cadillac fell in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Who Rides Lightning

So it starts like this.

It’s Chicago, it’s winter, and the boys are inside, holed up in some sad little hotel on the wrong side of town. She’s pissed and tired and could go for a drink or fifty (yes, she knows what alcohol tastes like, it’s soaked into her enough), and that’s enough to make her do what she swore she’d never do.

She Changes.

It’s a trick she picked up from all the magic that flew around like dust when they were carrying The Books With Terrible Words. She has a lot of time to absorb all of the words from the books, and memorize the incantations that they speak. So she’s learned a lot over time, and while she will never use some of it, it’s really tempting. Like this one spell. Even though she swore so many times she’d never use it, she does.

Legs, it turns out, are _weird_.

When she finally sees herself for the first time, it’s a bit of a shock.

“Holy _shit_ ,” she breathes when she peers into the glass of a window. It’s definitely a holy shit moment, because hot _damn_ she is one fine human.

To start with, she isn’t curvy. Her frame wasn’t made for curves. She’s slick and lean and wiry, but she’s _tall_ and her legs go on for miles. She’s graceful, not curvy, not huggable, but _graceful_ and her head is angular, her lips sharp angles that curve into a smile like a razor blade. Her teeth are sharp and white, and her cheekbones look like someone carved them with a knife, her skin the most glorious, rich golden-black she’s ever seen. Her hair is efficiently short and jet black, just like what her paint job was, and pulled up into a messy ponytail. There’s some parted left-right fringe that really does wonders to her face, and she grins when she sees the studs in her ears. They’re tiny headlights.

Her clothing, though…She likes the clothing. Leather pants shoved into tall, black leather boots with heels meant for man killing, plain silver tank that’s accenting a streamlined chest, and, because she is who she is, a comfortable, worn green jacket thrown over it all. It’s huge, and she’s pretty sure it’s Sam’s. Speaking of her boys…

She pulls up her tank top a bit, and yep. There they are. Scars on her skin, along the curve of her right hip, a simple SW and DW.

Her heart swells. She lowers her shirt, beaming, and marches out into the snowy expanse of Chicago for the first time.

oOo

Because nothing in her life is simple and she can’t just have a nice, quiet year with her boys, the apocalypse comes and goes. So they’re running around like chickens with their heads cut off, saving people, hunting things, makes an absolute mess out of her seats (she wants to tell them that John would have both their hides if he knew what Dean did in the back for enough money to get by, if only because, well, leather cleans pretty well but the general cringe factor remains) and somehow they end up in Chicago again, going after Death.

It becomes a very regular habit to change when it’s just too much, when she just really needs to get away for a bit. Her boys keep a veritable armory on them now, so when they’re not making enemies of Death by cheating him and prepping for a hotel to stay in (they’d drive again, but both of them are past exhaustion and need at least an hour to function), she shifts. She stretches to the left, then the right, swivels her hips to make sure that she’s settled nice, and sashays out into the streets.

The men stare.

Not the way that Dean looks at her, with that sweet adoration that resonates through their bond unbelievably (that first time, when he leaned against her at Sal’s, she had nearly started from sheer _shock_ at how much love was in that one touch), oh no. These men look at her the way the men in diners do when they pass to go to their battered pick-ups. It’s pure, unadulterated lust. She doesn’t like it. Not even a little.

So she snarls at a few people and decks a few of the ones who try to cop a feel, and she feels better about life.

And then she sees the woman.

There’ve been quite a few women who’ve ridden with her before. Her personal favorite was Anna, because she made Dean happy, even for just a little bit. Anna, who had rich red hair and sad eyes and so much power it was terrifying- Anna, who very quietly stroked a hand over her seats and repaired some of the exhaustion and wear and tear she felt before walking away from them one last time.

This woman looks like Anna, and there is a man yelling at her.

This just won’t do.

She marches over to the man, and gets right up in his face. “Excuse me?” she drawls out. “What did you just say to her?”

“Get out of my way you c-”

She hears the first letter of that word, and it’s enough.

The sound of cracking bone is so incredibly satisfying. The man screams, dropping like a stone, and she bends down to grab his face, forcing him to look at her. “Listen to me,” she says so softly, “You try and get up, there’ll be hell to pay.”

A hand on her shoulder makes her look up to see an incredibly tall man standing beside her. “Don’t you know that you’re supposed to start with the feet to make the pain last longer, Ms. Impala?” He asks, his voice a low drawl that makes her own sound harsh and pitchy in comparison. Her eyes widen, and she stands up slowly, looking at him suspiciously.

He’s tall and solid, wide shoulders and a trim waist enclosed in a stark white suit with a slim red tie, and the edge of his suit-jacket is flared like fins. His slacks are impeccable, as are the red leather shoes. His hair is white, and coiffed into a style that screams late fifties era.

 _Oh_. She knows who this is.

She bows from the waist, and whispers throatily, “My lord.”

Because you don’t just say, “How’s it hanging, Pale Horse?”

He smiles like a razor blade.

Fifteen minutes later they’re in an alley, and she’s shoved up against the wall as the Cadillac’s huge hands are sliding up her shirt.

“Why’re you here anyway?” she gasps out between moans as her neck is attacked.

“Work,” he replies simply, and dives in for a kiss. It’s filthy, and they both taste like oil and things best not mentioned, and she loves it. Her hands ruck up his shirt to feel smooth muscle bunching and coiling under them, and she groans the same time he does.

“How much time do you have left?” he breaths as his hands worry at the top of her leather pants.

2

“An hour- I can’t hold this form forever, I’m not that strong-”

With that she’s being led down the alley, and the Cadillac’s liquid voice is saying, “Well, we’ll just have to make the most of it, won’t we Ms. Impala?”

Right before they slide into the motel room, she tells him, “The name’s Kaz.”

No one but Dean will ever be allowed to call her Baby.

oOo

  


Somehow they end up at Bobby’s.

Kaz _adores_ Bobby. There are no words for just how fond of the man she is. He’s a shattered wreck of a man, just like her siblings strewn about the salvage yard, but he’s tough and strong and everything she wants to keep on being.

Dean parks her next to the Chevelle, and runs a fond hand over her before going inside. They’ve been with Not-Sam for quite a while now, and she hates it. She wants her Sammy back, the Sammy that mutters prayers when Dean isn’t around and will just talk to her like she’s human, like she’s his mom. And in a way, she is. She may be bonded heart and soul to Dean, but Sam is her child and she misses him fiercely.

She waits until they’re safely inside before transforming, stretching to get the feeling back in her steel bones. Next to her, the Chevelle shivers, and suddenly he’s standing there. He’s shorter than her, stocky and solidly built, and his skin is mottled different colors, but he’s just as tough as his owner.

“Hey,” she says.

“Girl, you in a _heap_ o’ trouble,” Chevelle states shortly. She grins at him.

“Aww, missed you too honey.”

The Chevelle rolls his eyes. “Please,” he snorts. “You didn’t miss me near as much as you miss His Lordship.”

“How the hell did you know about the Caddy?”

“Oh, good Lord, you two are even on nickname basis now?” the Chevelle asks despairingly. Kaz snorts at him.

“He’s a nice guy.”

“ _He’s the Pale Horse_ ,” the Chevelle said in exasperation.

“Job description doesn’t make his framework.”

“Thank you, Kaz,” a low voice says, and the Chevelle drops to his knees. Kaz stays upright, and goes to kiss the Caddillac sweetly.

“How was Israel?”

“Bloody,” he replies, a smile on his lips. His eyes flick to the Chevelle, who has his head obediently bowed. “Oh, come now, stand up. I don’t care for hurting my family."

The Chevelle stands slowly, and hesitantly lifts his eyes to the Cadillac. Kaz smiles and stands aside as the Cadillac approaches her friend. Slowly, he takes the Chevelle’s face in his hands, and presses a slow kiss to his forehead. The Chevelle shudders through it, eyes wide and anxious, but peace comes into them quickly and he slips into sleep, body crumpling to the ground, only to reform into his normal self.

“He needed the peace,” the Caddy says simply. “Sleep only, and perhaps we’ll have to see about fixing him up a bit.”

She gets it.

“We’ve got maybe a half hour,” she tells him.

“Better make it good then.”

oOo

  


“This is so many layers of improper,” the Caddy gasps as she straddles him in the back of a long dead pickup. He looks debauched like this, his suit half off, and she feels a sort of feral pleasure that she’s the one who can make him like this.

“I don’t give a damn,” she snarls, dragging him back up for a filthy kiss. They let themselves enjoy the time that they have.

oOo

  


They’re lying in the truck bed, and she’s tracing the smooth, cool lines of his skin when she sees the way lightning crackles under it, small but definitely there. He smiles indulgently as she runs soft hands over his chest, watching in awe as it slips into her skin as well. She lifts he hands, watching it fill her from the inside out, and it feels like riding on top of tsunami headed full force towards the shoreline- total power, but she’ll have to crash one day.

She closes her eyes and lets it go, and the whole lot is filled with the sharp buzz of energy as she distributes it to the rest of the salvage yard.

When she opens her eyes, the Caddy is watching her in awe. She smiles as he says softly, “I hereby grant you the title of She Who Rides Lightning.”

“She Who Rides Lightning?” she laughs. “Please, like the boys would ever let me get hit.”

Something in his eyes is bright when he breathes, “No- you’re the one who rides out the storm, and harnesses the lightning to keep it from hitting _them_.”

oOo

  


That night, when Death and his Pale Horse have left, she walks through the house and knocks quietly on Bobby’s door. It’s pushed open, and he stares at her, dumbfounded.

“Who …” his eyes go to the rosary draped around her neck, take in the leather and serious expression, the very metallic silver tank-top, and he says “Oh,” very softly.

She steps inside.

“Bobby,” she says quietly, reaching out to rest her hands on his shoulders. “Take care of my boys. They’re precious. They’re breakable. I can’t put parts back in them if they get in a wreck- they’re the ones who have to fix _me_ , and Bobby, I don’t know if I can take losing them again.”

He nods softly. “I’ll do what I can.”

She smiles, and leans in to kiss his forehead. “That’s all I can ask. And just so you know…the last fight that you and John had? He cried himself to sleep over it.”

Bobby’s eyes well with unexpected tears.

It’s enough.

oOo

  


Sam gets his soul back.

She wraps her essence around him when he slips into the car and cries at the joy of being home, and the fear that he doesn’t know what to do next. He falls asleep on her seats, worn out from the return to this strange new world, and she cradles him lovingly.

She has her baby boy back, and she’s happy.

oOo

  


If she had any idea how she’d gotten here, she’s be happier, but she’s in a bar, there are a ton of men around her wondering where a black chick this skinny and dainty looking got the _cojones_ to walk in here and whether or not it’s worth it to talk to her, and she has whiskey in front of her. Life is surprisingly good.

“I didn’t think you’d care for whiskey,” a familiar voice says.

“If I thought I could do it I’d be downing Everclear, but my boy’s have a rough day ahead of them,” she says tiredly.

The Caddy’s hand comes up to rub soothingly in circles along her back. The Sam-jacket has made a reappearance today- apparently it’s cold enough for it. She doesn’t mind.

It’s like having her boys close to her.

“Where’re you headed?” he asks softly.

“Oregon,” she says tiredly. “I like Oregon. Nice place, don’t get me wrong. I just wish I didn’t have to run myself ragged getting there. Poor boys are tired anyway, it’s good everyone’s getting some rest.”

She downs the whiskey quick and easy (compared to some of the burns she’s gone though, this is _nothing_ ), and the Caddy’s eyebrows raise.

“I’ve never tried whiskey,” he says mildly.

“Yeah?” Kaz grins, and waves over the bartender. “Whiskey shots for my friend in the suit, here.”

“Yes’m,” the bartender says smoothly, and the Caddy’s eyebrows furrow. It’s adorable to see him confused by the simplest of things, and she revels in the fact that she gets to see them as he learns.

“What’re you doing?”

“Giving you a human experience. You’ve always talked about how we never get around to doing “human” things, you’re as bad as Cas.”

He glares. He keeps on glaring while the Kaz downs another and the bartender places the glasses in front of him. Switching his glare to the glasses, he makes no move to drink. Finally, she says with no small amount of amusement, “For the love of all that’s holy, take the damn shot already, Pale One.”

He glares at her one more time, and knocks it back.

His reaction is _hilarious_.

The rest of the way to the place that they’ll be fighting dragons, Kaz laughs to herself, smug at teaching the Pale Horse how to live.

oOo

  


She beats her battered fists against the Caddy’s chest when he shows up next, sobbing oil that trickles down her cheeks. “Why?” She begs. “Why, we just got him back, why can’t they just have left my boys alone? I never wanted this to happen to them, I just wanted them safe and protected and I- I don’t know what to do anymore!” Her voice cracks as she breaks down, and he catches her just before she falls again.

Castiel is gone, swallowed by another being, something wrong out of Purgatory.

Sam’s mental wall is destroyed.

Dean is betrayed, his heart broken.

The world is on the brink of collapse.

She is broken, her body tumbled in the brutal sweep of the demons. She is mangled, and hideous, but still the Caddy soothes her, talks quietly to her until she’s calm enough to just cry normal tears and not ones of pure hysteria.

oOo

  


Dean rebuilds her from the ground up, keeping the little bits of her that make her who she is, and she loves him for it even when the aches of the day make her whine with pain.

He doesn’t sleep well, these nights, now that Castiel (sweet, sweet Castiel, who saw what Dean did to the men in her backseat and begged for him to stop and _got him to_ , innocent Castiel who knew she could change and came to talk to her those nights when it was all too much, beautiful Castiel who is so madly in love with Dean even if he doesn’t know it) is _God_ , or a kind of god. He normally comes out and curls up with her, lonely and sad. She wraps around him like a blanket, the warm familiarity of herself keeping him safe and sane. Those nights that he doesn’t come to her, she goes to him, slipping soundlessly though the door to curl up at his side and chase away the bad dreams as much as she can.

She does the same for Sam, those nights that things are soured. She fights off Lucifer single-handedly, because she is what broke him before and she can sure as hell break him again. Lucifer has nothing on her strength. She is the most important thing in the world, and she can take him down any day, because, as they say, love conquers all, and no one loves her boys like she does.

She’ll go outside barefoot sometimes, and he’ll be there, just standing and staring sadly at her.

She doesn’t know when she fell for the Pale Horse, but she’s content to let him wrap his arms around her and hold her like she’s the most precious thing in all of time and space.

oOo

  


Castiel takes on Sam’s darkness.

This is a good thing.

A few months later, he shows up naked on her hood, covered in honey and bees.

She is not pleased.

The Caddy is pleased when he takes the time to lick the honey off her chest, though, so she considers it a fair trade.

She does tell Castiel loud and clear later that she is _not_ a landing pad. He promptly smiles, curling up on her seats and telling her happily that she feels like home. She doesn’t say anything after that, just wraps her essence around him and holds him, because he’s one of her own, now, and she looks after her boys.

oOo

  


She loses Dean, and she goes insane for the third time.

The first time was when he went to Hell.

The second, when Gabriel let them go and he was killed in front of her. (Granted as fact, she’s almost forgiven the Trickster because the night he died, he came to her and told her that Sam would mourn him. He knew about her, and she gave him the comfort and strength he needed to go in and do what he had to, along with a sharp prod in the rear for the shit he’d put her babies through.)

But this takes the cake, pie, and assorted party prizes, because Dean? Dean is _gone_ , and her beautiful man likely won’t come back. Neither will her newest member of the family, Castiel, and this hurts more than she’d like to believe.

She watches as Sam falls in love and gets a dog. She hates the dog. The dog accepts this, and tries to be her friend. She does not cooperate.

And she sits, lonely and unused in the garage, just like when Dean was pretending to be an upstanding pillar of the community. This particular garage is actually an old gas station somewhere hidden in Texas’s driest stretch of desert. Sam uses it when he’s truly scared for her, and wants to keep her out of view.

She goes crazy, and finally shifts one day when Sam is gone just so that she can scream and cry and break. She throws things around the garage, smashes everything she can get her hands on, pulls out a knife and goes to it with a vengeance, because Dean is gone and Sam is wrecked and her whole world has fallen apart. She finds paint and paints the whole room with every protective charm she can think of, ignoring the way that shattered glass is making her ooze oil, and finally collapses on her cover, sobbing herself quietly to sleep.

When she wakes up, a broad, white clad body is curled around her.

She turns into the embrace of the Pale Horse, and lets him bring her to sleep with soft, gentle words and the low rumble of a familiar engine. He puts her back together, and kisses her like he’s finally truly tasted Death and is desperate for her touch.

It’s everything she needs, and when they finally truly make love, on the floor, surrounded by glass and paint and oil, it heals every crack she didn’t know she had.

oOo

  


Sam finds the paintings all over the walls, and very nearly panics.

But he keeps himself together, something she is inanely proud of. Her little fit wasn’t something that she wanted him to be freaking out over any more than she figured he would. Considering all the symbols are protective, it’s a bit reassuring to him, she supposes.

He does perform an exorcism though, which is kind of hilarious. She isn’t going anywhere.

The dog whines and paws at her tires, clearly anxious. She tries not to feel too guilty about its leg.

oOo

  


She spends a lot of time with the Caddy in the city while Sam wanders around with the vet and the dog. While he’s eating cake and cuddling in the park, they’re running through the town and having ice cream in classic parlors. They make an interesting pair, her in leather, him in silk. It’s nice though, and at night they run away and and hop fences in darkened towns, chasing each other with reckless abandon.

Of course, the Caddy is still the Pale Horse, and death follows them wherever they go. A small group of reapers always seem to appear whenever the chance arrives, and watch them with beady, suspicious eyes. The Caddy waves them off sometimes- others, he just kisses her with enough passion to make them uncomfortable enough to leave on their own.

Death follows her too, so she doesn’t mind too much on the days that a reaper tails them.

oOo

  


She gets Dean back.

She gets Sam back.

She gets Castiel back.

She gets Benny, for a bit, and when Dean runs off to do something she transforms and bitches him out for drinking blood that could get on her leather. He just grins. She grudgingly decides that she doesn’t _quite_ hate him but oooooh, Dean is gonna get it one of these days for inviting him onto her seats.

Life isn’t good, but it’s definitely not bad.

(And, you know, one of the benefits to Benny dragging Dean off to Vampire Island is that she gets time with her other man, and that is most certainly a very good thing.)

oOo

  
And while they’re chasing through the country, hunting the prophet of the Lord, if they stop one night in Vegas and if a girl with the bizarre name of Impala Chevrolet gets hitched to Chlomos Alogo (whose name happens to be Greek for “Pale Horse”) that’s no one’s business but their own.  


The End

  


(For now.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. This story was inspired by the incredibly awesome waywardchevyimpala from Tumblr, and is now part of a set that is slowly being completed. I hope you enjoyed it, and that you're having a fantastic day.


End file.
